Rolling the sleeves of the coveralls above her elbows, Valeria slid knuckle punchers on before adjusting the mining pouches affixed to her belt. They were filled with dynamite. “Dearest brother-friend, your droll attempts at glamour advice fall on deaf ears as we all know you received the short end of the beauty stick in our family.”
Cadrianna grinned as Finnus gave a shocked gasp. “Well, if that’s how you want our potentially final conversation to go, then I must regretfully tell you that your morning breath reeks of a kobold’s loincloth.”
“Ouch,” Valeria said sarcastically. “Haven’t heard that one since we were toddlers. Nothing new in that brain of yours? Probably not. Not everyone is capable of maturing and forgetting past affronts. It’s hardly a wonder why Father still thinks of you as a child, Finn, because you act as if you need your ears boxed more often than not.” To Cadrianna, “Shall we?”
A nod. The bikrome picked up a handheld aethecite lantern and pickaxe. Between the three of them, they had: a twelve-inch folded steel daemon blade with a knack for stating the obvious, a pair of knuckle punchers, some dynamite used by the miners to create new shafts, and a couple of pickaxes. Weren’t exactly the seeds to bear the fruit of war, but at least each of them had aetheurgy to fall back on in a pinch.
Cadrianna followed the Dunleiths from the mess hall. The wind had picked up and it brushed her face with a soft spray of sand. For some reason a memory from deep within her stirred.
She was standing on a balcony, one in the Regent’s Tower in Drenth. A man stood beside her at the railing, both watching the falling sun. A loving hand upon her shoulder. Emre’s hand. Beloved husband. A gust of wind brought a thin layer of sand coursing through the city, and it had landed upon her young face, her newlywed face. Happy together, both. The world ripe with possibility dawning before them, they need only walk toward it. Together.
It hadn’t been that way in their final interaction, Emre’s and hers.
O, the love still existed between them, but they both knew they had moved on. That they weren’t the same lovestruck younglings of those days upon the Tower. She could see the pain written all over his face, the same as she undoubtedly had upon hers. The world had ripped them apart, torn asunder their happily ever after, and destroyed their potential fairy tale of a life. They both understood it without having to say it.
That life was gone. Only one singular thing meant anything to either of them anymore. Both had their own reasons, but both agreed.
Brynn.
Their parting might be forever this time, and both understood the cost. And even though there would be more bloodshed and grief, Cadrianna felt joyous again. Free from the shackles that had bound her, the same ones which had buried those joyous moments of her life, those fractions of her building blocks blacked out when she threw herself into her vengeance.
She was free of it all.
It was as Thestile had said before she had killed her, ‘Never forget the truth of who you are.’ This was her true self, finally free.
Free to do what she was meant to do. Give Brynn a life she deserved.
“Cadrianna?”
She shook the memory away as the bikrome had stopped, waiting for her to catch up. The night sky was finally starting to brighten, if only cautiously. It wasn’t pitch, but closer to a velvety brunet. The stars were drifting out, but the crescent moon still glowed luminously over the Sea of Mist. Their path was lighted by the aethecite gleam of standing posts over the complex. Emre had ordered the entire place lit up.
“What’s that?” Finnus asked, pointing toward the northwest.
Cadrianna squinted. At first, she didn’t see anything, but then she burned her Void Form. Her eyesight enhanced under the aetheric spell, and Cadrianna focused on a cluster of stars, realizing they hadn’t been swallowed but instead had disappeared completely. A haze seemed to drown out the pinpricks.
She knew what it was.
“They’re here,” Valeria said, her bi-colored eyes shimmering in her Vision Form.
“Good,” Cadrianna snarled, her hand upon the Strix.
They raced from the complex to the mine shaft that would lead them deep into the sand dune where the bombs had been hidden. From there, they would set the charges and flee to the Temple. A chain-link fence squealed as the bikrome shoved open its gate. Valeria clicked on the lantern and sought out the powerbox. When she did, orbs lit up along the mine shaft’s roof, brightening the tunnel.
“REMINDS ME OF WHEN WE HUNTED DOWN THAT TRIO OF CAVE TROLLS FOR THESTILE. REMEMBER THAT ONE?”
The inside of the mine shaft was enormous, about thirty-feet high. The mega-city of Drenth might be drenched in Aere-infused neon, but this mine was more a tomb. An elevator was attached to a set of gears that stood darkly at the far end of the cavern, heavy cable holding a platform. Mining carts filled with aethecite pellets, wooden crates topped with nailed lids stacked up on one another, a drawn map of the underground tunnels showing the open ones. A radio speakerbox was built into the wall next to the map, presumably to communicate with the foremen in the tunnels below using Aere.
The Dunleiths were already near the elevator, the bikrome having turned on the power with a sudden hum from the aethecite engines. Cadrianna began a careful examination of the hand-drawn map, finger tracing the carefully drawn lines, trying to decipher which would lead to their end goal. “I thi—" her words cut off as a shadow filled the entranceway behind. A flicker on black scale.
Ratko stepped into the light.
“Go!” she yelled to the siblings before squaring up to the bearded scourge. If he was here, that meant other scourges, potentially even her greatest enemy. After a brief interlude of uncomfortable silence, the turning of gears and the whine of metal on the cable told her that her companions had descended into the mines.
“Hail, sweetling. Got time for a good toss?” The Strix flew into her hand as her aetheurgy burned. Ratko stood opposite, brandishing a pair of blades. “No? Might I just take you after your dead, lass. Care to finally cross blades or were those minor threats to keep my cock quickened until I have you.”
“I’m going to enjoy killing you, Ratko.”
“CAREFUL, CAD.”
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Strix. Daemon blade in hand, Cadrianna burned her aetheurgy and attacked.
One of Ratko’s blades parried her first attack, his eyes ablaze with his own aetheurgy as he deflected the swing with ease. Another stab with her knife, but it scraped off the scourge’s cuirass effortlessly. The scourge twisted and sliced her with the three-foot blade shearing through the exposed space between her left vambrace and couter, scoring her arm underneath. Cadrianna hissed as she staggered back, touching the new wound, finding blood upon her fingers.
“You thought me weak, didn’t you, lass? Too blind on your knees for the Fallen to care of the others around you. You’ve lost your edge. Your burn is weak compared to mine. For the Divines do not tolerate weakness.”
Cadrianna growled, split the daemonic blade in twain, and jumped, the dual Strix blades cut. Both blocked, Ratko’s swishing the air. Steel kissing and ringing high-pitched. Both kicked with aetheric-enhanced skill, aiming for vulnerable openings, but neither hit their target as both contorted their bodies in defense. Her blades whizzed, Ratko’s twins singing. Clashed forward, muscles straining as they pushed at one another with aetheric strength and speed. Faces no more than half a foot apart, eyes narrowed in the reddened haze of Void Form.
Ratko smiled through his thick beard, droplets of saliva beading the coarse hair. “Give it up, lass. You can’t beat me. The Fallen owns you. Be his tool. Be his war machine.” His breath nearly killed her on the spot.
“I’m nobody’s tool,” Cadrianna grunted through the fog of his mouth stench. Though she was strong, Ratko was larger, had a longer reach, and had more mass behind his aetheric thrusts. Cadrianna’s boots skidded through the sandy ground. “The Fallen will never win.”
“Then you will die, sweetling.”
The scourge shoved Cadrianna back, weapons breaking contact. She stabbed with one blade, aiming towards Ratko’s unprotected gut, but the scourge had anticipated it. Ratko wasted no time; his second blade rose and sliced her right wrist in the meat below her vambrace. The lancing pain arced up her limb, fingers losing grip on the Strix. It clattered to the ground.
Nursing the gash, Cadrianna swiped her other blade to keep Ratko at bay. The scourge pounced, edges whistling. Folded steel tearing another bloodied hole in Cadrianna’s skin, this time up near her shoulder, inches from her neck. Her blood vessels felt flames as she dropped the second Strix blade. A kick to her calf knocked her to her knees, but Cadrianna ducked away from the surefire killing jab aimed for her temple.
But the scourge’s attack left him open to a counterattack and Cadrianna took advantage of it.
